When I think of Hou Hsiao-hsien, I don't know what the actors are talking about. This is the case, as is the last "Coffee Time".
He wouldn't even tell the actors how to act, like the part on the train where Juliet Binuo promised to chat with a puppet master from Taiwan. Juliet gave the master a postcard that she had treasured for many years, all improvised.
Before filming began, Hou Hsiao-hsien's only request for Juliet-Binuo was that she had blond hair.
Look for the shadow of Hou Hsiao-hsien's past movies in this one.
For example, the rails and trains that appeared in the opening scene, and the dining table in Juliet Binoche's house...
I wonder why Hou Hsiao-hsien is so obsessed with dining tables that he has become the protagonist in almost all of his films.
Perhaps because of the consistent family theme in his works, the dining table can always be regarded as the face of a family.
Joys, sorrows and sorrows, prosperity and decline, are not all written on the dining table?
However, "Red Balloon" still shows Hou Hsiao-hsien's very different handling method compared to the past - the
film uses a lot of shooting through mirror or glass framing.
Even a long shot of Juliet-Binoy talking on the phone with her ex-husband in the car was done through the window from beginning to end.
This is even more true for the scene at the museum at the end of the film.
Through the reflection of mirrors and glass, we can see the ambiguous and blurred city streets, the small cafes on the side of the road, the faces of pedestrians passing by...
just because Hou Hsiao-hsien always feels too "real" , even an empty shot of flowing clouds and flowing water will fill the entire senses of a person.
This time, the avoidance of reality is empty, is it the Paris in the eyes of Hou Hsiao-hsien?
After the film was released in Cannes, a reporter interviewed Juliet Binoche. In the end she just laughed and said that the whole process was very fresh and unforgettable. And this movie, it doesn't matter if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter if it works.
Then watch "Red Balloon", of course it doesn't matter if there are subtitles, and if there are no subtitles, it doesn't matter.
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